(KYIV) – Ukrainian airstrikes on three Yandex data centres have triggered widespread disruption across Russia’s digital infrastructure, paralysing key services and exposing the Kremlin’s dependence on a centralised internet architecture.
The strikes, conducted over the weekend, targeted facilities in Kuga, Vladimir, and Ryazan. According to unverified reports, the destruction of these data centres caused a significant reduction in Russian bot activity across various online platforms.
A top Russian military blogger raised an uncomfortable question in a video that has circulated widely. “Why did we attack those Ukrainian data centres if we knew that ours are totally unprotected?” the blogger asked. “Why did we touch that Ukraine?”
The question reflects a growing sentiment among Russian commentators who supported the 2022 invasion but now face its consequences. What was intended as a three-day operation has become a protracted war with increasingly severe economic and infrastructural costs.
Russian forces attacked a Ukrainian data centre in September, causing minimal disruption. Online services in Lutsk experienced brief outages, though the attack resulted in civilian casualties. People in a parking lot were injured and some were killed. Ukraine’s response has been more precise, targeting facilities that control half of Russia’s internet services without causing civilian harm.
Yandex, Russia’s largest technology company, has seen its services severely disrupted. The destruction of three Yandex supercomputers paralysed multiple platforms, leaving millions of Russians unable to access electronic payment systems, call taxis, or use smart home devices. Businesses that relied on Yandex’s cloud services cannot operate properly.
The economic impact compounds existing pressures on the Russian economy. Inflation is rising, interest rates remain high, and there is widespread panic that personal assets could be nationalised to fund the war effort. Small and medium-sized businesses, already devastated by the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s financial policies, now face additional losses from the Yandex outage.
The strikes also dealt a significant blow to Russia’s disinformation operations. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late Wagner Group founder who was killed in a plane crash widely attributed to Putin, operated a troll factory near St Petersburg in Olino. This facility was part of a broader infrastructure designed to spread disinformation long before the invasions of Ukraine and Georgia.
By switching off Yandex, Ukraine has freed a significant portion of the internet from automated bot activity. Observers in Poland report that Polish internet now appears cleaner and less toxic. Comments below Donald Trump’s posts and White House announcements have changed noticeably.
Russian military bloggers who once questioned the wisdom of attacking Ukraine now suggest the special military operation will end only with Putin himself. The Russian dictator, who is the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, continues to live in a parallel reality sustained by the very bots Ukraine has now disabled.
Russia’s centralised internet architecture, designed to facilitate censorship and control, has proven to be a critical vulnerability. The Kremlin banned popular cloud services and promoted the concept of a sovereign internet, only to find that switching it off is easier for Ukrainian drone operators than for anyone else.
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